British rockers Sports Team were "robbed at gunpoint" on the first day of their US tour.
The Alex Rice-fronted indie group were at a service station Starbucks in Vallejo, California, on Tuesday morning (03.12.24) when "masked guys" ransacked their Mercedes-Benz Sprinter van before allegedly pulling out a gun when they tried to confront them.
The band shared a video of the masked men transferring their “personal gear” from the van to a car pulled up alongside it.
Their manager, Lauren, and drummer, Al Greenwood, were near to the robbers and seen running inside after calls to “stay inside”.
While they had items, including passports and stage equipment stolen, none of their instruments were taken so they were able to perform in Sacramento that night.
The clip was captioned on Instagram: “Just been robbed at gunpoint 10 minutes into the US tour. Stopped for coffee. Man runs in saying some guys are smashing into a van. Ran out to try to stop it and find masked guys ransacking the van. Start yelling and they pull out a gun. Police response was ‘submit an online report.’ Lost a lot of personal gear, but they didn’t get the instruments so driving on to Sacramento to play tonight."
The band found it “shocking” how “resigned” everyone was to the situation and said the police didn’t attend the scene and simply told them to fill in an online report.
They continued: “They can take our Nintendo Switches but they can never take our ability to play rock songs about motorways. In all seriousness pretty shocking how resigned everyone seemed to be to it. ‘It happens’. 9am at some petrol station Starbucks. Wild.”
Al recounted to the BBC: “Somebody opened the door and was like: Does anybody have a white Sprinter van? Because you’re being robbed right now.
“So we all ran out, shouting. Lauren, our tour manager, was slightly ahead of me, and somebody else ran past us in the opposite direction, and said: ‘Careful, he’s holding something.’”
He continued: “I really thought I was about to watch someone get shot, because it took a while for our tour manager to realise.”
